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Time to replace a pilot assembly is completely dependent on make and model. I can do a couple year old Heat-n-glo in about 30 minutes but it can take me about an hour to get some of the older Heatilators done.

I carry fireplace glass cleaner and clean the glass for them. People love it when you are done they can see the whole fireplace again. I also will clean out all the dead bugs from the burner box. again both of these are customer satisfaction items.

It all depends upon the age and type of fireplace. I replaced a pilot assembly yesterday that was 10 years old and every screw, fitting and nut was rusted. That was a 2 hour job!!!! Some can be done in much less time.

It's going to be hard to give a 'general time' due to the reasons given above. A simple non-direct vent standing pilot unit without a fan could be 30min. A more complex unit with a hard to access blower could be 2+ hours. Some units use about 56 screws/nuts just to hold the glass on and can be a real b!tch if they're rusty or siezed. Just cleaning the glass on a three sided unit can be over half an hour! Too many variables to consider.

Every fireplace is different and has different needs. If you try and group a fireplace repair into a general repair price you will be sadly disappointed and sadly lose customer confidence. The fact that you are concerned about something that I replace 0.01 percent of the time tells me you really don't know why fireplaces fail to operate. Instead of trying to cover your costs you'd be better off learning how to troubleshoot and diagnose properly.

Every fireplace is different and has different needs. If you try and group a fireplace repair into a general repair price you will be sadly disappointed and sadly lose customer confidence. The fact that you are concerned about something that I replace 0.01 percent of the time tells me you really don't know why fireplaces fail to operate. Instead of trying to cover your costs you'd be better off learning how to troubleshoot and diagnose properly.

I am not trying to flat rate this!!!

What I am trying to do is be able to tell the customer the part is going to cost $X and the labor is going to take x hours at our companies hourly rate. We really are mainly a heating and air company and are just starting to do insert service. I do not want to piss off a regular customer by charging them for 3 hours labor on a 30 minute job done by an experienced insert tech.

I am learning to troubleshoot these and have had bad items, broken spark igniter rods and powerpiles, and that is why I asked.

On the units in question it took 2 hours to dissassemble unit, clean the glass, vacuum soot, replace pilot assembly, replace logs, rock wool, pull and clean blower, vacuum lower area and fire off unit to verify no leaks and blower came on. Also run a check for CO spillage.

In my opinion if you are getting into the unit to replace either one of these or a thermocouple, replacing everything ( pilot assembly ) is the prudent thing to do. If you only replace one item in there and the other fails soon after I would think the customer will be really pissed. Also, it has been cheaper to replace complete assemblies at times rather than pieces.

I would also make sure the customer wants all the "extras" done. They do take time and the customer is paying for that time. Some customers don't want to pay for any extras they want to be cheap. I always ask if they want the glass cleaned while it is off. I almost always get a resounding YES.

If doing all that took 2 hours, then only replacing the pilot assembly/Thermopile or Thermocouple may have only take 45 minutes. That may have been all the customer wanted.

Ask first, it may cut down on the *****ing about how high the final bill is.

Interesting discussion on the range of things to do when completing a repair.

I always had an hour minimum charge. One of the reasons for that was that it meant that most of the time I could complete the repair for that minimum charge, and I was free to do as much as I thought necessary and appropriate without the customer being concerned about being charged more than they already expected to pay.

I wouldn't replace pilot generators or thermocouples unless they were failing or in obvious bad condition for some reason ---- having a call back because of that was very rare.

Cleaning the pilot orifice was the most common maintenance required --- I generally replaced the Robert Shaw bell shaped orifice since I found cleaning them produced unreliable results.

Generally I cleaned out any junk in the burner compartment and cleaned the glass. I'd charge $3-5 or so to add or replace embers.

So in most cases people were charged the basic service cost they were already expecting to pay and got a fireplace that worked properly and often looked better than they could remember -- so they were happy.

The people that got charged more approved the price of the parts in advance. For jobs that took longer than an hour, people understood that they would be charged only for the time it took to do their job.

"So in most cases people were charged the basic service cost they were already expecting to pay and got a fireplace that worked properly and often looked better than they could remember -- so they were happy.

The people that got charged more approved the price of the parts in advance. For jobs that took longer than an hour, people understood that they would be charged only for the time it took to do their job."

I think SP's method works well. This is how we do 'repair' calls as well. Usually I will give the unit a quick look over and then talk to the customer about the condition of the unit. I explain how doing a full service/cleaning while doing the repair can increase the appearance, performance and reliability of the unit for not much extra $$. About 95% of the time they say yes and become regular service customers.